Fukushima Unit 4 sinking, structure on verge of complete collapse

So what's the worst case scenario; a complete meltdown occurs and the Earth has a "mini-star" within it spewing radiation for many centuries to come until humans come up with technology to quell it, or it just eventually fizzles out?

reply to post by majesticgent


Sounds like a Fallout sequel.

Where can you buy a cheap radiation suit?

Serious lol.

reply to post by Valhall


I honestly think giving up would be the worst...

That's kinda premeditated murder... Especially since we really don't know what would happen.

well i dont dare to downplay the potential severity of this situation
I dont see any recent news on this..must not be a huge concern to the locals

reply to post by Lil Drummerboy


I don't think they want to create panic for no reason if there is nothing that can be done.

Originally posted by Valhall
reply to post by Gridrebel

 

The question is really how long-term is the sinking of the ground under the reactor. I mean, if the geologists see no end in sight, then it's a futile effort to try to mitigate the effects of the decrease at this point. But if they see it as slowing and potentially reaching a maximum low point, then grouting can take place to reinforce the concrete floor of the containment area. There are engineering ways to remediate this IF the ground subsidence is considered a temporary phenomenon.

geologists have no idea what it's going to do mainly because they have no idea how far the meltdown is into the basement and or into the soil below. doesn't really matter though, because no one could get near the basement/ground area because of the radiation.

Just what I need, more nuclear holocaust nightmares.

Japan get your $h!t together.

In all seriousness, if this reactor sinks too far and breaches, Japan will no longer be; in simple terms. The radiation levels would be so grossly high for such a small country that it would be many fold worse than the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. It would spread across the ocean, killing sea life and infect every country of the world. We have already found higher levels of radiation in our food and atmosphere where I am in the United States - along the west coast and even in small concentrations along the east coast after the first fukishima meltdown a year ago. This has the potential of being a top tier cataclysmic event, with the possibility of killing millions or tens of millions.

The only thing I can think of that might the situation if a meltdown/through of the fuel rods is expected, is to seed the projected path of melt with heavy non-radioactive metals and other non conductors. (Above and below.) Such that the melting causes the metals and other masses to 'muddy' the melting fuel rods so much that it slows down both the descent of the melting mass and helps to create a barrier around the hotter core of it.

Basically the entire idea is to create enough of a melted mass that the heat/fuel reaction is slowed to where it cannot burn all the way into a water table quickly. In time however, the hotter fuel will congregate in either a solid hot mass, or in separate pools within the larger mass. At that time it is possible that the fuel would act much like an old fashion lava lamp, where the hotter elements of fuel rise as they are heated, cool and sink back into the mass in a continuous fashion. (Which may account for the various rises and dips in temperature in reactor 2.)

The ideal case would be that the entire melt would reach a thermal equilibrium and remain in a solid mass so that additional shielding could be placed around it.

But of course they could do nothing....

M.

reply to post by LittleBlackEagle
How do you know all this ? For the record the Japanese got screwed with the worst designed reactors . Not all plants have the same set up ! And I can tell you for sure we dont have the same set up here in the US . I rarely log into ATS as it has become like youtube and its just back and forth banter . Where is your proof , oh yah well where is yours , and so on . I will only post once and I WILL NOT reply again . I work for the military at a nuclear shipyard . I have constant training for handling nuclear material , also for decon . We monitor levels everyday here and have seen such a slight increase in levels , not enough too become chicken little like most people . Relax Japans radiation disaster is not going to end the world , so please stop with the doom and gloom . The only people that are going to suffer are the Japanese , to them it will be like chernoble , I am sure I spelled that wrong so make sure someone points that out ! It helps to take away my credability . Now don't get me wrong what has happened there is pretty bad and I feel sorry for them . But it will not stop me from going there to support the washington on the next avail . That's that big aircraft carrier in case you did'nt know . The internet has plenty of real info on this subject if you just do some research from CREDIBLE sources , not the tinfoil hat army , as you find on these sites . Not to offend but some of the post and comments are just assnine . Well its late and I work in the early A.M. good luck and goodnight . P.S. The solution to pollution is dillution , it's a navy saying

Originally posted by Funk bunyip
reply to post by deadeyedick

 

Is there any way to stop this from getting worse?

No.

Actually yes of course there is , however it would require a concerted effort of more than one nation , a international union of countries and resources to make it happen.
It would require millions of pounds/ dollars/ yen and lots of men and women to make it work!

If the planet is at risk , sorry not the planet the human race , if the species is at risk then we should all muck in no matter what to resolve the issue.

We would have to completely shut down the reactors and entomb them forever in a massive state of the art sarcophagus , and create some sort of electromagnetic plasma field around it to stop the radiation from leaking

Originally posted by majesticgent
reply to post by Lil Drummerboy

 

I don't think they want to create panic for no reason if there is nothing that can be done.

They don`t want to create panic, because there`s no reason to panic.

Originally posted by hououinkyouma

Originally posted by majesticgent
reply to post by Lil Drummerboy

 

I don't think they want to create panic for no reason if there is nothing that can be done.

They don`t want to create panic, because there`s no reason to panic.

Thank you very much.

We are all more relaxed now....

Originally posted by deadeyedick
Makes me wonder if there is any scenario where the worst doesn't happen in this case.
Is there any way to stop this from getting worse?

Sure there is..

Take the fuel rods out of there at any cost.

their mess, they should do the honerable thing and sacefice their lives to carry out the rods and contain them elsewhere..might take a crew to carry the material a few meters and then drop dead to be replaced by another suicide crew, but hey.. It's for a good cause..!!

Why dont we just set off a nuke at the plant? There are probably some new ones that use up most of the energy in the explosion and then it would just be like Nevada ie safe enough for humans.

Originally posted by Valhall
reply to post by Gridrebel

 

The question is really how long-term is the sinking of the ground under the reactor. I mean, if the geologists see no end in sight, then it's a futile effort to try to mitigate the effects of the decrease at this point. But if they see it as slowing and potentially reaching a maximum low point, then grouting can take place to reinforce the concrete floor of the containment area. There are engineering ways to remediate this IF the ground subsidence is considered a temporary phenomenon.

First, the article claims that there is little chance the subsidence will slow down much less stop due to the soft nature of the underlying bedrock.

So what does that leave us? I was a maintenance and manufacturing engineer for a rather large company with plants in four states. We had five divisions of the company on the Georgia campus. One of these was the Elastomer division that compounded the rubber products used in the rest of the plants. Rubber is compounded in a couple of types of machinery. We had one type, a two roll mill, in the corner of the Elastomer building nearest to a deep retention pond. One day on my rounds I noticed that I could get a really good foot massage by standing on the concrete floor behind the mill. Obviously, something was wrong and the concrete floor was losing support from the ground under it. I had to determine which of the three possible causes was responsible. The three ways this could have happened were washout, compaction and subsidence. Washout and compaction were the easiest to repair by simply doing a high pressure mud jacking with the additional step of finding and stopping the water source if it was a washout. Fortunately the problem turned out to be compaction and the mud jacking worked just fine.

But if the problem had been subsidence it would have been a whole new ballgame. On flat land it would have been necessary to drive pilings deep enough to support the weight of the building. But since the building was on the edge of a steep slope it would have been necessary to use soil augers screwed horizontally into the side of the slope to stabilize it with the possibility of some vertical pilings being necessary too. Both would have been very expensive and time consuming tasks.

Now, as to the situation in Japan; the descriptions I have read in some of the linked articles would rule out either of these approaches being effective. From the description of the bedrock being too soft it would seem to be nearly impossible to stabilize the building with pilings. And that assumes that they could even get close enough to the building for long enough to do it because of the high radiation levels.

As for the radiation threat...
Building four has only about 1500 spent fuel rods in it's cooling pool. While the melt down and burning of that many would be pretty serious it pales in comparison to the 14,225 fuel rods total on the site. If building four goes they won't be able to get people close enough to the site to maintain the cooling pools in the rest of the buildings. That means that eventually the entire 14,225 fuel rods would also melt down and burn.

I don't personally know if the estimates of total radiation released and the effect it would have on the rest of the world are accurate but more than one expert has described it as a TEOTWAWKI event (The End Of The World As We Know It).

So it is starting to look more and more like TPTB will get their monies worth from all those underground survival bunkers they are supposed to be building.

reply to post by Ironclad


They have suits and containment canisters to move those things. It has to be done swiftly though, getting them into another portable cooling unit for moving them to another location. One rod can be moved at a time fairly safely. Ten rods every day, it wouldn't take long

Originally posted by deadeyedick
Makes me wonder if there is any scenario where the worst doesn't happen in this case.
Is there any way to stop this from getting worse?

There is no 'good' scenario here....never was,which is precisely why the MSM are all hush-hush about it.They knew it long ago and that's why we have to come here to get the TRUTH.You cannot unring a bell,especially one of this nature and magnitude.
Our only 'hope' would be if any of the recently named Nobel prize winners invented a time machine.

Originally posted by rickymouse
reply to post by Ironclad

 

They have suits and containment canisters to move those things. It has to be done swiftly though, getting them into another portable cooling unit for moving them to another location. One rod can be moved at a time fairly safely. One every day, it wouldn't take long

Lets do the math on that...
There are more than 1500 rods in the #4 building pool. 1500 divided by 365 (days in a year) equals a little over four years and one month. If the collapse and meltdown are as imminent as some claim they are I doubt they would be able to get enough rods to a safe location in time to do any real good. What they need is for some engineer to come up with a way to remove them much more rapidly.

Originally posted by watchitburn
Man, if it wasn't for bad luck, Japan wouldn't have any luck.

My money is on a meteor strike next. I think that would be par for the course at this point. Good find Arken, thanks for bringing this back to our attention.

While there is always some element of 'luck' in any given situation that has 'nature' as a variable,and God knows I agree that Japan has had an awful lot of time lately "in the barrel" so to speak,it only accounts for a certain percentage.
When all the powers-that-be were formulating their plans to build these reactors,they were fully aware of a good many of the risks involved,including building near the "ring of fire" and what kind of natural disasters could play a role.They also made several fatal mistakes in the way they constructed everything,like the spend fuel rod containers being in such a bad place and their whole "emergency" pump system and all that crap--however you wanna put it--they created something that was doomed from the get-go,sooner or later.Just a matter of time.

Sayin' all that to say this:NEVER CONFUSE BAD MANAGEMENT WITH DESTINY.